Smart Growth Around America

Smart Growth America / Transportation For America Communications Director David Goldberg was interviewed for the current issue of Mother Jones Magazine. In the wide-ranging interview, he discusses some of the history of SGA — but also discusses the prevalent economic and market forces that are reshaping consumer preference and affecting our growth patterns.
Read the full [...]

MSNBC reported this morning on yesterday’s theme of transit ridership continuing to trend upwards, which is placing a heavy burden on a lot of systems that are running at or near capacity. As they say, transit ridership is at its highest point in 50 years right now. It’s continuing to reach new levels, but it’s [...]

[UPDATE: 12:33 p.m. Do read Andrew Revkin's post on the NYT's Dot Earth Climate blog for some other thoughts about the debate and political wrangling going on with the bill.]
After many months of behind-the-scenes work, the first piece of comprehensive climate legislation reached the floor of Congress this week. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is [...]

I noticed some numbers on oil prices that Ryan posted on The Bellows a few days ago, and thought that they were screaming out for some sort of graphical representation. Rather than spend a lot of time crafting some sort of polished graphic to illustrate the point, I resorted to the kind of design that [...]

American Public Radio’s Marketplace this morning featured a very brief snippet on Growing Cooler and how the economic downturn and rising energy costs have altered the dynamics of the housing market. As the similar story on NPR showed earlier this week, markets with short commutes or in close proximity to transit and the core of [...]

High gas prices are squeezing the housing market on the fringes of metro regions.

It can be scary to turn on CNBC or CNNMoney these days. Watch for just a minute or two, and you’re likely to hear that not only is the housing market in trouble, but we might not be able to see the [...]

In two separate blog posts, U.S. News and World Report writer Marianne Lavelle crunches some of the numbers on the effect gas prices will have on the latest economic stimulus package that President Bush recently approved. (Part I, Part II) Based on projected increases in gas and other petroleum-related energy prices, Lavelle finds that as [...]

What’s in store for newly-created exurban neighborhoods like these, far from the city’s core?
Perhaps for the first time since the late 1940s, when the country emerged from depression and world war to launch the national project of settling the countryside surrounding its beleaguered cities, our culture appears to be entering a critical examination of [...]

After nearly two years of study and debate, the Congressionally mandated, bipartisan commission charged with predicting our nation’s transportation future emerged last week with it’s collective hair on fire, screaming that our driver-less SUV of a federal policy is headed for a cliff. To which the news media responded with a collective yawn, except for [...]

As long as local and state leaders in Georgia fail to grasp that Atlanta can’t pave its way out of traffic congestion, Atlanta could be in danger of becoming a case study in what may happen to a city’s business climate when an economic model based largely on growth and continual outward expansion hits the [...]

Click to watch the video “A New Economic Engine: Energy in the 21st Century”

Be sure to check out a recently-added video from the Center for American Progress, titled “Capturing the Energy Opportunity: Creating a Low-Carbon Economy,” including an appearance by SGA executive director Don Chen.
This video is part of a series by CAP on [...]

While many news stories have carefully followed the price of oil over the last few weeks and months, many have missed the distinction that unlike the late 70’s, this price spike results from overwhelming demand, rather than an unnatural crimp in supply, as was the case with the embargo — the last time we saw [...]

This headline on CNN today (Here comes $100 oil, and $3 gas) caught my attention in relation to a story in our newsletter yesterday. Crude oil futures did actually hit $90 yesterday, after hovering in the $80 range, edging upwards towards $90. Which basically means that more traders are betting that the actual price of [...]

Most of the SGA staff was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last week for Reclaiming Vacant Properties, the first ever national conference on the issue of vacant properties. We’ll have some pictures and stories to follow in the next few days, but we wanted to alert you to a related chat taking place on the Washington Post’s [...]

Many of us watching the last few decades of development in America have been repeating the mantra that the weight of crushing commutes, skyrocketing fuel and energy prices, overly large and costly houses and understated demographic changes were converging on us with serious ramifications and that changing the rules to create more affordable, smaller footprint [...]

It’s easy to figure out that driving less means more time to do other things. But can it also result in money in the bank? According to economist Joe Cortright, cities and their residents might be reaping financial dividends by investing in transit and walkability, and mixing uses so that jobs and housing are close [...]

As gas costs go up and geopolitical concern over oil supplies rises, many Americans are feeling increasingly vulnerable. But residents in some metro areas are more exposed than others. Places where “affordable” housing lies at the distant fringe no longer look so affordable. Spread-out metros like Atlanta, where Gov. Sonny Perdue cancelled school during the post-Katrina fuel shortage, are especially susceptible to fluctuations in gas prices…